


Abel and Kain

by reminiscence



Category: Digimon - All Media Types, Digimon Story (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen, Season Rewrite, antagonistic POV, drabblechap, ffn challenge: DFC festival, ffn challenge: becoming the tamer king challenge, ffn challenge: diversity writing challenge, ffn challenge: season rewrite challenge, kogure is their grandfather, tomomi and kain are cousins, word count: 10000-19999 words
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-02
Updated: 2016-11-20
Packaged: 2018-09-01 01:45:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 49
Words: 11,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8602336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reminiscence/pseuds/reminiscence
Summary: She'd follow Kain for the most part, but slowly, she was starting to discover boundaries. - Tomomi





	1. Chapter 1

Tomomi skimmed the text, then deleted it, frowned, and went back to listening with one ear to the conversation.

They were talking about Digimon again.

Everyone was talking about Digimon these days. Whoever was in charge of promotion was doing their job, and doing it well. And everyone was talking about the glorified world it was. Monsters that were civilised, who needed humans to grow. What a glorified _game_.

She wondered what they thought when they got tired of playing. When they realised they hadn't signed up to a game at all.

She wondered what they thought when they realised they'd left the human world behind.

But she didn't really care. The human world was pretty glorified too. School filled with classes they'd barely need when they emerged into adulthood and the real life. People who just sucked up to adults and sneered at the dumb kids who'd drop out before they could graduate and made friends with the people who looked like they'd be the most successful.

School was just a game. A political game. And there were two ways to play it. Rule or follow.

Ruling made one the bad guy. It was a gamble. On the other hand, it was pretty easy to follow.

Even if it was dissatisfying.

But she wouldn't lose anything if it all went down burning.

Not like Kain.

Because as much as he was her cousin, he was an idiot. He was dashing towards a confrontation.

She knew what he hated, but seriously, was it worth it?

Of course, he would ask in return: was her bland life worth the peace?


	2. Chapter 2

It wasn't often their extended family got together for dinner, even if there wasn't much of them. Neither Tomomi and Kain had any siblings, and family on Kain's father's side was still in America where they belonged…including said father. So it was only Tomomi, her parents, Kain's mother…and Grandpa Kogure who chattered everybody's ears off and yet still demanded respect.

Tomomi had lots of practice at filtering such chatter – at letting it flow through one ear and out the other.

Kain might have had such practice too…if he could keep quiet in the face of things he disliked or disagreed with. But he couldn't. His _friends_ weren't chatterboxes about the superficial like Tomomi and who she could afford to give half an ear to. In fact, in her opinion they weren't friends at all. They were followers. People who'd listen to what he said without question.

He called her superficial. She did the same. He was one person who always managed to get under her skin, no matter how she tried not to let him.

As for Kain's skin…everyone got under it. Even his mother, who hadn't gone chasing after her waylaid husband because she still had a child to raise. Grandpa Kogure and all his virtual games and virtual worlds and virtual researches was pretty much a given.

But family was family, Tomomi's parents would say. Even if putting the family under one roof made for far a peaceful dinner.

Then again, it might be an improvement for Kain, who could usually only dine with his mother with a sour look on his face.

Because he wore that sour look everywhere and couldn't get on without it.


	3. Chapter 3

'The level of intelligence of these species has surpassed animal levels,' Kogure was saying excitedly between spoons of soup. Tomomi's mother frowned at the lack of table manners but said nothing. She said nothing to the scowl Kain sent in her direction as well.

Kogure, for all the scientist he was, was remarkably unobservant: of this encounter and of similar ones. 'We think that, soon, their intelligence will have reached human levels.'

He had a look of glee on his face, appearing more like a child then their grandfather. He always appeared like that when talking about the Digimon and the Digital World.

And Tomomi could think of lots of people, including her gaggle of friends, who'd love to be in her shoes now…provided somebody removed Kain from the equation.

Kain who was now grumbling about false advertising and alien invasions.

'Giving them human level intelligence is dangerous,' he said. 'You might as well hand over the world on a silver platter too.'

Tomomi thought that was a bit unfair, considering the whole thing was _virtual_ …but, of course, Kogure didn't see it that way.

'They're harmless,' he argued. 'Enhancing their intelligence simply makes it easier and more fulfilling to communicate with them.'

'Like all humans are worth communicating with,' Kain scoffed. He cast a quick glare at Tomomi, who read it easily. _Like that gaggle of geese you call your friends._ 'And like humans don't go around plotting world domination amongst themselves.

They went back and forth like that and Tomomi picked her food and listened with half an ear. Truthfully, she thought Kain's arguments were more sound…even if Kogure was disillusioned by the idea of the peaceful world he'd created. The world everyone seemed to believe held no negativity at all. Where everyone sparred for fun and never fought.

A world where peaceful didn't mean ignoring what was in front of one's face sounded kind of good.


	4. Chapter 4

'It's simply amazing! You have to come too, next time.'

Of course, they were talking about the digital world. They'd gone the previous afternoon and, by the sounds of it, had fun.

It was starting to get on her nerves a little. Why couldn't they talk about the mall instead? Of course, that would grate on her nerves after a fashion as well, but there was something more with the Digital World. Something to do with Grandpa Kogure and Kain arguing over dinner, about Grandpa Kogure trying to encourage her to be interested, be invested, to do anything more than just smile and nod and then make excuses and escape having to do of those really long questionnaires to pick out a "partner"…

It was like tagging along to see a fortune teller but drawing the line at having her palm read. And it didn't matter if she had her palm read or not, in the end, because she'd gone along and watched the others and listened to their debrief afterwards and it would be the same there. She didn't want the prolonged responsibility and she didn't want a partner either, because a partner sounded pretty permanent and permanent stuff were life-changing and she liked her life the way it was. At least for the moment when she was just a middle school girl without much power.


	5. Chapter 5

Tomomi blinked at the text. Kain tended to text her a lot, if only to rant. And he knew full well she tended to read them, delete them unless they warranted a reply (which they hardly did) and then go back to whatever it was she'd been doing – which was actually what he wanted, so that was all fine and good. He ranted to her _because_ she just let him rant, because she wasn't like their mothers with their disappointed looks or their grandfather who just argued right back. She let most of it go in one ear and out the other, but as long as she was listening or reading and not disagreeing, it was all fine between them.

But Kain rarely texted to ask her something. And even less common was him showing any interest in the digital world, and yet both were there on her phone. _Are your friends going to the dw today?_

Tomomi glanced at her friends. They were still chatting, not really realising her attention was elsewhere. Some of them had their phones out: sharing photos, paying half a mind to another conversation –

'When are we planning on it?' Tomomi asked.

The girls shrugged, tossed out times. Tomorrow afternoon eventually came out of it and Tomomi nodded her own agreement and returned Kain's text.

She got an immediate reply. _Don't get a partner._

 _Well, duh,_ she typed back. He knew her well enough to know she wouldn't want one.

But Kain's next and final text said something else. _Get a digivice. Someone else's. One of your friends._

Tomomi heard her name and quickly switched off her phone. 'Sorry,' she said. 'Boys, you know.'

'Boyfriend?' The girls giggled.

Tomomi laughed with them. 'Family.' Not that her parents really had much to say about the digital world, except that they should be proud of the success.


	6. Chapter 6

Later, in the comfort and privacy of her own room, she replied to Kain's last text. _Get someone else's digivice how?_

It took a while for the response to come back this time, but it came: _Borrow it. Steal it. Whatever._

Tomomi almost choked on her drink. He wanted her to _steal?_ Then she reread the text. Borrowing shouldn't be a problem, and the coarser alternative was his normal attitude towards most thing, now that she reconsidered.

He always had admired those figures who weren't afraid of the consequences of their actions. But he wasn't rash – or, rather, he wasn't rash with anything that wasn't words. In arguments he was, because he could afford to be. In speaking, or texting as it was, he could afford to be careless with his words because the recipient got the intended message nonetheless. No way Kain expected her to steal. He'd probably think her an idiot if she did. But a stranger would think otherwise. She's thought herself otherwise in that first, fleeting, instance. He was easy to misunderstand that way. He chose to be easy to misunderstand that way.

But she only need to turn his words over in her head a little to understand the underlining meaning. All she really had to do was ask to borrow a digivice. She doubted they'd be too concerned with giving it, so long as she returned it in a timely manner. And she didn't think Kain would spend too long with it either.

Still, Kain could be unpredictable at time. It would be a good idea to check.

_Will you need it long?_

The reply came back quickly again, as though he'd been waiting. _The weekend._

That shouldn't be a problem. Her friends didn't go anywhere near the school on the weekend.


	7. Chapter 7

They went to the Digital World on Friday. The others had their digimon. The computer asked if she wanted to register as a Tamer. She said no and was warned to stay in the company of a tamer or an official at all times and then sent to follow the others.

Then she followed them. It was actually pretty boring. They send out their baby digimon to fight other baby digimon and get stronger. And, of course, conveniently all the wild digimon were weaker than the trained ones so there was never a danger of getting overwhelmed. And the scenery of Data Forest was too picturesque. So peaceful. So perfect. So…useless.

But a lot of aspects of life were like that. And she went for the boring things because those things were also _safe_. So she could get the appeal. It sort of _was_ appealing, like playing a mindless game was appealing because you didn't have to concentrate on it and the results didn't matter. But the problem here was the digimon. How they chatted. How, already, they were developing their own personalities. There wasn't the distance a normal game gave. There wasn't that autonomy. They talked like they talked with friends and got to know each other, and that communication meant there was a relationship. And having a relationship meant being responsible, sharing emotions, feeling things like worry and anxiety and missing them…

So, in the end, she didn't change her mind at all. Not that she'd really expected to. Something caught in a family quarrel could hardly be something she'd fall in love with straight away – or even at all.


	8. Chapter 8

Kain met her at the gate with his motorcycle to give her a ride. Or, at least, to her friends it looked like that. He had an ulterior motive of course. So she told him about the trip as they rode back to his house, and she handed over the digivice she'd borrowed from one of her friends once they got up to his room.

'So what are you planning on doing with that?' she asked. He immediately tossed it on his desk and then started tapping away on his computer. She peered over his shoulder, but that stuff was too complicated for her. She'd never been interested anyway. It was good enough she knew how to surf the world wide web.

'Creating my own,' Kain mumbled. He sounded annoyed as well: a tell tale sign that he was busy now and didn't want to be disturbed.

And Tomomi would let that go, because that was just what she did. She went downstairs instead and helped her aunt with the cooking, and let her prattle on about what a good girl she was and all that.

And in the meantime she wondered why on earth – or the Digital World – would Kain want to create his own digivice instead of just get one the normal way. It wasn't like they cost any money. Unless it was a pride thing.

It was probably a pride thing, Tomomi figured. That would be just like Kain.


	9. Chapter 9

Surprisingly, considering the trouble he'd seemed to be having initially, Kain was done with the digivice over the weekend and Tomomi gave it back on the Monday. 'So will you get a digimon for yourself?' they asked. 'Come on, you can't be the only one.'

Tomomi shrugged. 'I don't even know how I should answer half those questions.' She meant the questionnaire they had to fill out before they got the digimon that matched their personalities best – or so the process went anyhow. She hadn't actually seen the questionnaire, but her friends had told her about that as well. And they were pretty probing questions. Some people seemed to answer them honestly. Some were on the other end of the spectrum, just putting down random answers and somehow getting away with it.

Honestly, Tomomi didn't see the point of doing all those questions. More likely they were one of those research things where they milked the participants for all it was worth under the guise of something else. Besides, her grandfather knew her well enough. She didn't need to dissect herself for him. And she didn't want a partner anyway, even if friends did have one and she'd probably wind up getting one sooner or later anyway, just because they had them. Because she couldn't be out of the fold for long. The atmosphere would subtly shift and they'd stop inviting her. They'd whisper behind her back and a wedge would slowly be forced in…

And Kain would tell her she was an idiot, or something far more vulgar, when she caved.


	10. Chapter 10

It turned out she didn't have the time to cave. Kain had either pre-empted the timing, or it was a coincidence on his part. Either way, he was texting her again and inviting himself over, and they were in her bedroom with her phone connected to her computer and Kain downloading something or other in to it.

'What are you doing?' she asked. 'Don't use up all the memory.'

'What do you take me for?' Kain snorted.

Which was fair enough, considering one thing he did know was computers. Took after Grandpa Kogure in that sense, though he would never admit it. Not that there _was_ any point in denying it, considering. Not that people bothered to call him out on it these days, considering the reputation he'd built for himself in other areas.

Like being a total failure at simple _conversation_.

'What are you doing?' Tomomi asked again.

'Making a digivice,' Kain replied. 'Don't worry,' he added, and the choice of words was so unusual for him that Tomomi stared. 'I already tested it on my own phone.'

'You're turning the phone…into a digivice.'

'Adding to it,' he corrected. 'It keeps its normal phone functions.'

'And you did this in a fortnight?' It was impressive, if it did work. Though… 'Why?' It might make things more convenient, to not need an extra device to carry around. But aside from that, what was the point?


	11. Chapter 11

'It doesn't have the same capacity though,' Kain explained. 'It's just opens the door and scans at the moment.'

'Can't convert,' Tomomi finished. Which meant it wouldn't control any digimon. 'But why? What's the point?'

Kain scowled. 'It's useless. But so is the digital world. Just like any other game. And I'll prove it.'

Tomomi shrugged. 'Suit yourself.'

Except it wasn't just him. 'You're helping.'

She blinked at him. 'You could at least ask, you know?'

But she'd probably wind up helping him anyway, because when he got an idea into his head, he didn't let go. And she didn't care enough either way to fight tooth and nail – especially with her friends trying to get her to come with them as well.


	12. Chapter 12

Kain didn't want her to get her own digivice, even though that might've helped him out. He had other plans, he said. And he'd gleaned enough from that one time, or so he claimed. And he managed to get it scanning data eventually, though it had taken a few trips to the Digital World where Tomomi buried the phone in her pocket and stuck close to her friends who did have digimon.

Whoever came up with the idea of getting data even when you didn't do any work was pretty stupid, but it was helping Kain's master plan now. Over a few weeks, she managed to collect enough data for a few in-training digimon. Weak digimon, of course, but that was Kain's next step. Beating the system without having to enter and engage with it. And she was the shadow: there, witnessing and leaching, but not necessarily engaging herself. Should be boring. Is in fact kind of interesting, because Kain liked to withhold information from her and that let her try and fill in gaps. Instead of her friends which just battled everything and left nothing to imagination.

Though Kain claimed she didn't have an imagination. Maybe not one like _his_. But enough to be bored with the script that inevitably came with a utopia.

And she knew Kain planned on messing that up. Hence the interest. Because what better way to make a utopia interesting than messing it up.


	13. Chapter 13

She reached 100% data for a Pagumon first, and it was perfect. One of the uglier, less famous digimon. One of the ones that climbed to their maximum scan data without ever being converted. Kain was less enthusiastic, perhaps because it was all the same to him. But he set about attempting to form a digimon from the data collected. Taking the long way, of course, because she could have just as easily done it with one of her friend’s digivices  - or gotten her own digivice and done the same process through the legitimate channels.

But it was like sneaking into a theatre when you have enough money for a ticket in your pocket. Not that many people were rebellious enough for that. Perhaps the most they did was steal a cookie out of the jar instead of telling their mothers they were doing so. Rebellions that accomplished nothing in the grand scheme of things, that could barely be considered rebellions except no-one wanted to do anything more open, anything worse.

It was all about fitting in, in the end. People could be like Kain: a real rebel, rides a motorcycle, tinkers around in his room instead of attending classes most days, and had a record with the police. But he had one advantage over most people: no father. And his mother had to choose between being the disciplinarian and being the kind and tender parent who patted all the boo-boos away...and she’d gone for the latter.


	14. Chapter 14

The Pagumon was awful.

Kain scowled at her when she said. The Pagumon scowled too, but for a different reason.

'He's missing an ear,' Tomomi pointed out. 'Which, in human terms, equates to missing a whole arm and leg.'

'True, I guess.' Kain still looked disgruntled as he checked through the stats. 'You had 105% scan data, so I don't know what the problem is…'

'The conversion, maybe,' said Tomomi sarcastically. She might not be a technical genius like her cousin, but she didn't have as big an ego either. 'It's like...your first try. You're not - ' He glared at her in a way that suggested he'd slap her if she kept talking, so she stopped. He got along best with her but that didn't mean his patience was infinite.

Actually, she reconsidered, he didn't have much patience to speak of at all. He might've been happier if he did. He might've been boring if he did too, so most of the time she wouldn't change that about him. Except when he got down-right scary. Down-right threatening. Like when he looked like he was going to hit something, or break something.

He picked the Pagumon up by its remaining ear and shook it. It squirmed and snarled and tried to bite him. Kain dropped it again in disgust. 'At least it's functional.'

'Do you have to be so rough?' Tomomi asked. But she couldn't really fault him for that either. His handling _had_ yielded results and after that first scowl, she doubted the nice approach would have done much good.


	15. Chapter 15

She was right. The nice approach was useless and abandoned quickly. Most of the time, she had to grab that Pagumon by the ear because it was going to bite into her mother’s decoration cushions or one of her make up tubes. ‘You’re hopeless,’ she growled. ‘Why couldn’t Kain keep you at his place?’

Because she was doing the field testing, he’d explained, and he had sensitive equipment.

‘Sensitive equipment, my ass,’ she muttered to herself, watching the Pagumon turn stubbornly away from her again. ‘He just doesn’t want to deal with the pain.’

Why did she even think this was a good idea? And then she had to train it too. In secret, without the company of her friends to protect her if Pagumon decided to not listen to her (because she couldn’t yank on his ear during a battle - or very easily).

She might have to think about getting a leash for it. It’d probably need one. And a muzzle to stop it from trying to gnaw through her mattress when she was asleep.


	16. Chapter 16

Their first solo trip to the digital world wasn’t quite the disaster she’d feared. They managed to defeat a Poyomon, though that was more because Pagumon attacked anything that attacked it than it listening to her. At least it had something to attack with. They’d been a little worried about that.

Kain, of course, wasn’t impressed in the least. ‘You couldn’t get it to go up even one level?’

‘How about we swap places?’ Tomomi countered.

‘Oh, I’m sure I’ll come in the end,’ he said airily. Tomomi frowned. That was the first time she was hearing about that. But of course he’d want to try out his toys himself - once they were all in fine working order. ‘Judging from your friends, it should only take you another battle, even with a weakling like those Poyomon, to get it to level four. Though try to get it high enough for a new skill. Level five or seven.’

‘Sure.’ Tomomi rolled her eyes. ‘It’s not like I ever plan on sleeping at night.’ But it’s not that bad, and Kain knew full well she spent all the boring classes asleep anyway. And almost all classes were boring.

‘You should start ditching school, you know.’

‘Unfortunately, I have a dad that’d spank me with my hairbrush if I tried.’

Kain muttered something she couldn’t quite make out. But she caught the gist of it. He only grumbled every time she brought up her father, because it was intolerable to have such a figure of authority in his books.

Things would have probably been different if he’d had one himself. But when your father gets your mother pregnant and then jumps back to their home country… At least it made things interesting now.

And, of course, you couldn’t pity Kain. He just wasn’t the pitiable type.


	17. Chapter 17

They defeated a Tanemon and two more of those Poyomon, and Pagumon got kicked around by a Goblimon too. She’d told it it wasn’t near ready for that, but did it listen? Nope. Of course not. So she had to sacrifice some of her hard-saved allowance to pay another tamer to get it healed up on their account. At least he didn’t ask questions. Maybe he assumed she was so bad a tamer she’d exceeded her account already.

He didn’t know that she had a cousin who was trying to replicate, adjust and ultimately bring down, the system.

At least it got Pagumon fixed up. Kind of.

‘What’s with the ears?’ the tamer asked.

Tomomi shrugged. ‘Got a defunct,’ she grumbled.

‘You should toss it out and get a new one.’

‘We’ll see,’ she shrugged.

The Pagumon was sullen and silent.


	18. Chapter 18

‘I don’t believe this,’ Kain grumbled. ‘Five digimon. It should only take two for it to gain a level. What’s it doing?’

‘Maybe I’m not the dysfunctional one,’ the Pagumon growled from under the chair.

‘What did you do?’ Tomomi asked, raising an eyebrow and ignoring the little in-training digimon. ‘Adjust things when converting it?’

Kain shook his head. ‘I needed a normal specimen before I did that.’

            ‘Pity,’ said Tomomi, ‘considering this Pagumon is hardly ordinary. Maybe you should work on the converting system and try another digimon.’

‘Maybe.’ He obviously didn’t like the idea, because it meant discarding the first attempt as a failure. But it would get frustrating the longer the Pagumon took to gain levels. Frustrating for Tomomi who was doing the work, and frustrating for Kain as well, staring at numbers that stubbornly refused to change. ‘Let me try to fix it, first.’

‘Suit yourself,’ Tomomi shrugged. ‘You’re the one losing time in the end.’

She’d give him about three days. One week, max. And then he’d cave and demand scan data for another digimon. Luckily, by then, she had a few choices. Poyomon, Tanemon...and she even had enough for a Tsunomon, though just barely. But they were all in-training digimon. As far as rookies went, she had about 30% for Betamon, and just a measly 10% for Goblimon - that one Goblimon that had beaten Pagumon to almost a pulp.

And the little digimon wasn’t even grateful she’d yanked it out of the punching line by its ear and dragged it to be healed. Honestly.


	19. Chapter 19

She was right about the three days. The Pagumon had managed to achieve another level but that was about it. Still couldn't hold its own against rookies. Still didn't obey a single command of hers - and that was another issue she raised with Kain when she saw him. 'The point of remaking them is so we can control them, after all.'

'I'm trying,' he snapped, staring at the code he'd written. Tomomi didn't bother. It may as well have been another language to her - though computer code was a language, she supposed. One she didn't understand - or want to understand. 'That Pagumon is useless.'

'We already know that,' sighed Tomomi. 'Does this mean you've fixed the programme?'

'Won't know until we try it again,' he said. 'Hope you've got some spare data.'

'Enough for five in-training digimon,' warned Tomomi. 'That's not a lot.'

'It doesn't need to be. You're forgetting. That's all data too. I can just replicate it.'

Which meant he could do the same to the rookie data, so long as she had a bit of it. 'So I guess I'm on window-shopping duty?'

'You should probably tag onto your friends for that,' Kain cautioned. 'We don't know how digimon attacks affect people, after all.'

'Aww, you're worried,' Tomomi teased, 'but yeah, that's a good idea.'

Later, she'd realise that was one of the few times he did show worry about her.


	20. Chapter 20

Her friends were too slow. They loved the digital world, but they took their sweet time in levelling up and exploring it. On the other hand, it was too risky to separate herself from them and search for more data that way, because she could wind up in trouble if she did. And drawing attention to herself and Kain’s little experiment.

So she had to put up with the slowness of it all. Kain would convert a digimon every few days and Tomomi would sneak away with it at night on days before classes she could afford to be inattentive in, and then train them for a bit. The second one wasn’t deformed like the Pagumon was, but equally slow in levelling up. And she found out that the game had a brutal side when an Ogremon crushed it so badly, it digitized.

‘Interesting,’ Kain said, when she explained it to him. ‘So what you call digitizing,’ because, of course, she couldn’t ask someone about the proper term without explaining why she was on her own without being registered as a tamer, ‘is like a file getting deleted, clearing up the space for something else.’ He sat on the thought. ‘It actually simplifies things?’

‘Simpifies?’ Tomomi raised an eyebrow. ‘Isn’t it weird that Grandpa included death in his little utopia?’

‘It’s not death.’ Kain frowned. ‘They’re data. The code can be remade. The wild digimon are no different from each other, after all.’

‘That’s true,’ she agreed. The digimon did line up like random encounters in a pokemon game. It’s probably where he got the idea from.


	21. Chapter 21

Kain finally managed a Tanemon who seemed to have a normal growth rate, and it made such a difference. Within a few days, she was able to evolve it into a Palmon. She also found out from her friends that she shouldn’t have been meeting Champion digimon so early in the game anyway. It was something to do with the data records on their devices. They only met digimon they could beat - unless, of course, they belonged to other Tamers.

In other words, exposure to wild digimon was tailored towards the strength of the digimon the Tamer carried. Data was contained in their digivices. Data that was accessible by the large mega-computer that housed the Digital World and all the digimon as well. The system they escaped because her custom made digivice wasn’t hooked up to that system.

‘So you’re the only person in the world getting a taste of the real so-called utopia,’ Kain grinned, when he told her. ‘Perfect.’

‘Perfect for you maybe,’ said Tomomi sourly. She’d been a little freaked by the news. ‘Lucky I was sticking to Data Forest for training. You know Steamy Jungle has a gigantic, Ultimate level spider. I could’ve been bug food so many times over.’

‘We already knew that was a possibility,’ said Kain carelessly. ‘We also knew Data Forest didn’t have any Ultimate digimon, and just the odd Ogremon, so it’s not a problem.’

She had to accept that. Kain _had_ told her to stick to Data Forest for her night training.

‘By the way, I’ve got a second digimon for you.’

‘Joy,’ she said. ‘It’s going to be tricky to juggle them both.’

‘Tamers are supposed to have three,’ said Kain. He said “supposed to” as though he meant to crack that rule.


	22. Chapter 22

Kain had broken another rule. Her new Betamon grew even faster than Arurumon. Several digimon beforehand, they’d stopped being stubborn too. They obeyed her directions - but the difficulty was she had to tell them to move because they seemed to lack the ability to do it themselves. It was a bit annoying, but the Tamers did the same. Only their digimon could talk, and sometimes talk back. So in that sense, she had the easier job now. Kain had taken that quality of them disobeying right out of the equation.

It took a few months overall to reach that stage. At that point, after two sleepless nights in a row because Kain wanted to see if her digimon could reach the next level without the credentials (they could, Veggimon and Sukamon respectively, and they were both woefully ugly and unfitting for the utopia they’d been created from), they had another family dinner.

Kain was silent this time. A rare occurrence, but Tomomi knew why. His mind was racing on what next to do. What he could modify about the digimon. What he could modify about the system. She was going to suggest self-growth when she had the chance. The having to level up by battling again and again was starting to grate on her nerves.

It wasn’t that bad though. She had to consent to that. Part of it was because Kain made everything interesting. Part of it was because it broke up the monotone school life - and got her friends off her back because she visited the digital world on occasion with them. Even though they were after her to register properly. ‘One of these days,’ she’d say.

They didn’t know she was already a Tamer. The only free Tamer, as it were.


	23. Chapter 23

‘Why don’t you kids visit my lab one day?’ Grandpa Kogorou suggested, once dinner passed without affair (which was an unusual occurrence in itself). ‘Kain? I hear you’ve got yourself a new project.’

Kain shot a sour look at his mother. She looked downcast, and Tomomi felt a stab of pity towards her. She really had been too soft, letting her son walk all over her, and now she was paying the price.

‘Sure,’ Kain replied. ‘New project. Nothing interesting. Just robotics.’

‘But all artificial life is interesting,’ Grandpa Kogorou declared. ‘The digimon, for example, can evolve through the feeling of friendship, thought to be an entirely human concept…’

They listened with half an ear. Tomomi thought Kain wouldn’t be listening at all, but he proved her wrong.

‘Know your enemy,’ he said. ‘At the same time, I don’t want him to think I actually care.’

‘No,’ she agreed. He’d talk their ears off then.


	24. Chapter 24

‘You worked out how to level them up without having to go to the digital world?’ Tomomi asked, then groaned. ‘Before I even asked you to, too.’

‘Your fault for being indecisive,’ Kain shrugged, not sounding particularly concerned. There was nothing to be concerned about then, anyhow. ‘We still need the data from every digimon possible, though.’

‘Of course we do.’ Tomomi yawned. ‘Geeze, I haven’t been getting enough sleep.’

‘Girls and their beauty sleep.’ Kain rolled her eyes.

‘Like you don’t need sleep,’ Tomomi frowned. ‘Besides, you’re not the one who has to go hiking through forests and mountains at night to do something that has now been made redundant.’

‘Tomomi…’ His voice softened a tad. ‘You know I needed you to do this to work it out.’

‘Yeah, yeah.’ She waved a hand. He sounded strange when he was trying to be nice. ‘Just make sure I get to share in the glory.’ It was a big of a joke, ultimately. It wasn’t like being the queen of the new world would be her reward.


	25. Chapter 25

‘Oh, you’re not a Tamer? Neither’s Tomomi.’

Tomomi blinked. That was a rarity - though she couldn’t say she liked the tone of their voices when they said it. Though she hadn’t noticed their group had a new member. The red haired girl, he realised, wearing a goofy grin and looking excited when the others explained that world, like it was the utopia it was all ramped up to be.

‘You don’t seem too excited,’ she mused, as they fell behind on the walk to the terminal.

What was her name again?

Tomomi shrugged. ‘It’s not as glamorous as it looks,’ she explained. ‘Digital pets you fight with - or not even “pets”. Most don’t even talk.’

She frowned at that. ‘That’s sad.’ Not what Tomomi had meant at all. ‘I’d much rather be friends with them than make them fight.’

So the girl was idealistic.

‘Aki!’ the others called. ‘Come on!’

So her name was Aki.

She hovered a little longer. ‘I’ll give it a try,’ she said. ‘You said most don’t talk. Some do?’

‘Bosses that have scripted lines,’ said Tomomi, ‘and apparently, the few rare partners that have an atom’s worth of intelligence.’ Which seemed to be what she was aiming for.


	26. Chapter 26

Aki was terribly idealistic, it turned out, and naive. She signed up and got herself a Tanemon that she couldn’t coax a word out of initially, then went through the first “event”. The one with Calumon and Gabumon. The whole script and she was so happy, as though it wasn’t a script at all.

Somehow, the others who’d gone through the same event themselves hadn’t noticed, either. All happy that digimon were talking and interacting, never minding it was the same thing repeated in a never-ending loop whenever a new Tamer subscribed. There were hundreds of Calumon, one for each Tamer and their farm. Sticking to the small amount of words they could manage, doing the role assigned to them.

So Aki was swept away like the others. People really were silly, sometimes. Aki seemed to have forgotten Tomomi’s disinterest entirely. Just like the rest of them.

They’d found out how imperfect the world was eventually.


	27. Chapter 27

Kain decided it was finally time to test out the digimon in battle against other Tamers. Mess up their nice and pretty script - while collecting more data for what he called his encyclopaedia, after all. ‘I’m going to make a digimon after this,’ he said excitedly. ‘Something so strong, no-one will be able to beat it.’

‘How?’ Tomomi asked, not that she’d understand the fancy lingo anyway. ‘Mesh a few digimon together?’

‘it’s more sophisticated than that,’ he snapped, like he expected her to grasp things at the same level as him. Or maybe he wished she did. She entertained him, after all. And, sometimes, she’d wish he’d explain things a little more fully, since she was helping and all. But Kain never did like explaining things and she was used to going along with things instead of arguing her way through things. Because what good did it do in the end? Take Aki, for example. She’d forgotten all about the scripting when she experienced the digital world for herself.

They’d worked out most of the script...or, rather, she’d worked it out from her friends and her night wanderings. And now they were going to mess with it.


	28. Chapter 28

Data Forest and Training Peak were pretty straight-forward. The occasional Champion. Mostly in-training and rookies. No way they’d be able to handle an ultimate, let alone two of them. She had Dagomon. And others, but Dagomon was satisfying, because that was the first successful one, the one she’d had to train up to Ultimate herself before Kain had automated the process.

Which was ridiculous in and of itself, but to Kain the choice didn’t really matter. He’d picked something more disposable himself. One of the many red MegaKabuterumon he’d tried to get past the ultimate stage and failed. The secret to Mega evolution seemed to elude him still. There was a secret in the digital world still, but once he had that…

She wondered what would happen. Would he create that all powerful digimon he wanted to? Would it remake the digital world? Or destroy it entirely?

And what would happen after all that was said and done? Normal people would be fine. New attractions would find them. They were fleeting that way, after all. But what about people like Grandpa Kogorou? Like Kain?

She thought it a little of a shame they weren’t fighting each other face to face. It would have gone on far longer then. Meant something more. At this rate, Grandpa Kogorou would find his paradise gone before he blinked.

Well… She shrugged. That’s what happened when you were so short-sighted. If they’d monitored things carefully enough, they’d have picked up on the irregular digimon tossed into the system. They’d have picked up on non-Tamer registered digimon attacking wild ones. Of scan data vanishing from the system. There was a trial of breadcrumbs Grandpa Kogorou was simply blind to.

Kain was rushing with things too. Making decisions faster.

Maybe he’d hoped Grandpa Kogorou would have noticed as well.

Maybe he was disappointed.


	29. Chapter 29

They waited at Training Peak. They knew some newbie Trainer would come looking for a digi-cake for their Calumon. A newbie with only a rookie or two, who might still be on their first week in the digital world. They’d caught a few, and this was a new afternoon, a new opportunity.

She didn’t expect it to be Aki this time. She should have been well past except she wasn’t. She ducked a little behind Kain so she wouldn’t see, but they were high and in the sun and she doubted Aki would know it was her anyway, especially armed with the knowledge that she didn’t have a digivice and wasn’t registered as a Tamer.

Kain took care of the talking anyway. And he was good at it. A little scarily good at it. Seizing the cake, saying weak little girls like her shouldn’t be playing on dangerous mountains and laughing when she said she’d come for the cake for her _friend._

Tomomi had to laugh at that as well. Aki still hadn’t gotten it into her thick head that it was all a script, and Calumon couldn’t feel a thing, despite what Grandpa Kogorou tried to mimic and create. And, of course, she was prepared to fight for it. And so was Kain, in the role he considered the eliminator. Because once they lost all their digimon, they’d be revoked as a Tamer and have to wait a bit before they got back in.

In other words, they’d be taking advantage of the rules to create a bit of mayhem in weeding out Tamers.

Except it didn’t work out that way. Some blue haired kid came around. With a Cyberdramon - an ultimate level digimon. Someone who thought himself a little like a hero, investigating the odd occurrences at Data Forest and Training Peak or something similar. Or maybe Grandpa Kogorou wasn’t as clueless as as he appeared and had sent him.

Anyway, he seemed to know, on some basic level, who they were and what they were doing. And his Cyberdramon had hit both their Ultimate digimon and disintegrated them in a single strike.


	30. Chapter 30

‘What the hell was that Cyberdramon?’ Kain growled. His calculations weren’t giving him any answers and it frustrated him. It frustrated him how quickly blue-haired kid had beaten their digimon. Sure, there were stats they missed out by not “interacting” with their digimon, but they made up for it by artificially enhancing other stats. And Dagomon hadn’t even been entirely starved of attention. She’d trained it, after all.

So how had the other Tamer beaten them so easily?

‘Power levels?’ she asked. ‘Ultimate digimon have more leeway than champions and rookies, surely.’

It took forever to evolve them to Mega, after all.

Kain was sure it was something else. Something that could be overcome simply by manipulating the data, since it was the digital world and everything was data, in the end. And it clicked to him eventually. ‘He lucked out, that bastard.’

Tomomi raised an eyebrow. ‘How do you mean?’

‘The failures we released into the wild? I bet he picked up their data and it’s mixed with his.’ Which was interesting, she supposed, and suggested the digimon Grandpa Kogorou made had something more on Kain’s still. But she didn’t say it aloud. She could guess what they’d both say, Grandpa Kogorou and Kain. That Kogorou’s secret ingredient was love. Except, of course, Kain would be sarcastic and Kogorou would be near ephemeral about it. One didn’t care enough and the other cared too much, perhaps.


	31. Chapter 31

‘It was so scary, Aki was saying. Part of Tomomi longed to break the image and yell it was _her_ \- her and her cousin - that had been the ones to threaten her, to mess with the script. But, of course, she got to give the cake to Calumon anyway because that blue-haired kid - Yuji - had come to save her.

‘He’s a Gold Tamer,’ she explained. ‘And his Cyberdramon is so strong. He says it sometimes forgets he’s there, when there’s a really strong opponent he wants to beat…’

‘All strong digimon are like that,’ said one of the other girls, ‘if they grow too fast for the trainer.’ And since Yuji was a gold Tamer, it sounded like Kain’s theory was right and he’d gotten one of the mutants. Except he’d been ignorant, so he’d stuck with it.

Did that mean Kain had gone backwards at one point? Had he sacrificed strength of one kind for speedier growth? Tomomi made a mental note to mention that. She forgot about it promptly when the girls mentioned something else.

‘I heard there’s something called a data core.’

‘A data core? What’s that?’

‘Some sort of digivolution item. But it’s a bit different to the regular ones. They work on digimon that aren’t yours. Like wild digimon, just to make the battles in the wild more entertaining.’

It sounded silly, for someone to purposely evolve the digimon opposing them.

‘Of course, they’re just scattered about so the wild digimon run into them. It’s pretty much impossible to catch one.

And then the significance of it clicked. They could use it to get over the gap to mega - and perhaps even work out why Kain hadn’t quite managed it yet.


	32. Chapter 32

Finding a data core took months, and then they ran into another problem. She couldn’t touch it. It seemed like something only the digimon could get near, and Kain wanted to research the pure thing before he tried it.

Only because it was so damn hard to find, of course. The digimon were dispensable, especially now that they grew on their own, without input from them. Of course, Tomomi still needed to take at least one when she went hunting for the data core. She didn’t like insects like the Kabuterimon so she went for the Gigadramon most of the time, because it could fly and snipe - and it became a habit afterwards.

Kain scorned it, of course. Implied that she was getting attached. First Dagomon, and now Gigadramon. She scorned him right back. Who did he think she was, a fan just like her friends?

In any case, they had a problem in getting the digi-core, now that she couldn’t pick it up. Kain had a few ideas about that, and they visited it a few times.

‘At least you were smart enough to barricade it,’ he muttered, as though he didn’t think her as a capable member of the team.

That irritated her, but she had to remind herself that Kain was simply like that, and she ought to know.


	33. Chapter 33

Somehow, they bumped into Aki again. She’d come pretty far along pretty quickly. A silver tamer now - and Tomomi gaped at her when she realised the other had that Pagumon with the missing ear tagging along. How did she put up with it?

She gaped further when she realised the two were holding a perfectly legible conversation. Pagumon wanted to digivolve. Aki scolded him about being too patient. Pagumon quietened...then mentioned the digimon it wanted to defeat - and the people. It mentioned her and Aki gaped. ‘Why Tomomi?’

Kain raised an eyebrow at her. ‘Don’t you remember?’ she asked. ‘The first Pagumon you degenerated. The one that wouldn’t get any stronger?’

‘Hate you,’ the Pagumon muttered.

It had been degenerated and remade. Why did it still remember them? And how did it feel something like “hate” anyway? it wasn’t one of the boss digimon.

‘Tomomi’s okay,’ said Aki. Not nice. Just okay. Tomomi wondered if it was the blatant disregard everyone gave everyone, or Aki was more observant than she looked and had realised the arm's length distance Tomomi kept everyone else at. ‘I can’t say I really know Kain.’

Or maybe it was naivety. Everyone knew Kain, and Kain’s reputation. And yet Aki seemed still willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

And she murmured something or other to Pagumon that made it calm as well.

Kain didn’t appear to hear.

Tomomi did.

‘You don’t have to hate. You have friends now. Like me, and I won’t abandon you. I promise.’

Her digimon crowded: three digimon. A Lilamon, Angewomon and Silphymon. Three elegant, beautiful digimon. And yet they were in fighting stance when a fight hadn’t even begun yet. As though they were protecting the little Pagumon. Or were angry themselves.


	34. Chapter 34

Tomomi wished she’d brought a digimon with her. Kain had said she didn’t need to. He only brought his red MegaKabuterimon in case he needed to infuse it with a digimon to test it out. But she felt threatened with Aki and her three Ultimate level digimon there. Even if Aki wasn’t threatening at the least.

If anything, she was like the really nice psychiatrist that made you feel guilty about everything.

‘Hi,’ Aki chirped, once Pagumon was placated. ‘I didn’t know you were coming, Tomomi.’

Tomomi shrugged.

She turned to Kain. ‘And I don’t think we’ve been introduced. I’m Aki, one of Tomomi’s friends.’

He ignored her. ‘We’re taking the digi-core.’

‘Well - ‘ she stuttered, a little taken aback by his rudeness. ‘We kind of need it - for Pagumon -’

‘Too bad.’ Kain probably realised he’d be outmatched 3-1, especially when this was one of the old specimens that had the same weakness as the ones Cyberdramon had destroyed. Instead, he just shoved his red MegaKabuterimon into the digi-core.

It evolved, into a big even bigger than the one it had been before. When it roared, the grass and trees shook. Tomomi shook a little as well. Good thing it was on their side.

Until it took a swipe at her, And she didn’t even notice until something had knocked her flat on her back.


	35. Chapter 35

Pagumon had knocked her over. The one-eared Pagumon she’d abandoned in a fight because it was so useless. Had saved her. She couldn’t believe it.

Even if Grandpa Kogorou had been smart enough to programme a “save all humans” feature into all the digimon, shouldn’t it have been one of Aki’s three Ultimates? Or one of the Champion digimon that had been creeping up, before they fled. Surely all of them were faster than Pagumon. But it had been Pagumon who saved her.

Pagumon who’d complained to Aki about her. Who’d begged for a chance to digivolve.

Who, maybe, had only wanted some love for her.

But how could bits of data feel such complex things? How had Grandpa Kogorou made them so real? It just couldn’t be…

The mega-level bug screamed again. She covered her ears and curled. She hadn’t brought a single digimon. Kain had only brought the MegaKabuterimon. ‘Kain!’ she screamed. ‘Do something to that insect of yours!’

Kain didn’t answer her. Kain wasn’t even there. But Aki was there and Aki’s three digimon were there, one protecting Tomomi and Pagumon, and Aki too when she ran to crouch with them. And the other two took the forerunner’s position. Shooting attacks. Defending from attacks that knocked them back.

And then it vanished. Just like she’d watched Pagumon and countless other in-training digimon do. Just like Yuji and his Cyberdramon had done to her Dagomon and Kain’s other red MegaKabuterimon.

‘Where did it go?’ Aki asked.

‘It’s dead,’ Tomomi said flatly, though she was shaking. ‘Its data will go back into the digital world, and become a wild digimon. Eventually, it’ll feed into the scan data for a new digimon...or become a new digimon.’

Pagumon looked exactly like that first one. It hadn’t just become a part of the scan data. It was the whole thing.


	36. Chapter 36

There was a bit of the digi-core still left. Aki asked if she could have it. Tomomi nodded and crawled aside. She didn’t think her feet could support her.

She watched Pagumon touch it and grow taller. Grow into a rabbit with two ears. An Antalymon. It didn’t look out of control like the mega level insect, though. It bent down and let Aki pet its ears. It looked happy, as well.

‘I’m going to beat that Kimeramon!’

Aki laughed. ‘I’m sure you will.’ Then she frowned. ‘But first…maybe we should go home.’ She looked at Tomomi.

If Aki was going to stay nice, Tomomi was more than happy to take advantage of it for the moment. She was still shaking, partially from fear, and partially from anger. That, and her elbow hurt where she’d landed on it. Which proved people did get hurt in the digital world.

And she’d been in that situation without any protection except a girl that was just too nice. And Kain had disappeared somewhere and left her to it. How dare he!

Aki was the complete opposite. Chatty and nice. Her Silphymon gave Tomomi a piggyback ride. She watched Antalymon’s back. Antalymon was that puny Pagumon she thought wouldn’t amount to anything because Kain had messed it up.

‘Hey,’ she said, suddenly. ‘How did she tame you?’

‘I didn’t,’ said Aki. ‘Baihumon asked me to look after Pagumon. I’m his friend, but he’s not my digimon.’

That was supposed to be, according to Kain, impossible.

‘But digimon words are scripted.’

‘Not really.’ Aki frowned. ‘Some bits are, like tests and things. But when you get to know digimon, become their friends, then it’s not scripted at all.’

‘We’re more than capable of thinking for ourselves,’ said Silphymon. ‘If we didn’t like Aki, our programmes might force us to stay with her but we wouldn’t obey her.’

‘I wasn’t forced,’ said Antalymon. ‘I wanted to give Aki a chance...and I’m glad i did.’

‘Aww,’ said Aki. ‘i’m glad you did too.’


	37. Chapter 37

Aki had to stop at her farm to drop off her digimon. It turned out she had more than just three, and she hugged and talked to each of them in turn.

It also turned out she often brought friends to her farm, because the smaller digimon and Calumon gathered at her feet. 'Hi!' they chirped. 'What's your name?'

'Tomomi,' said Tomomi, bemused. Who knew they were so social? Of course, that was getting past the fact that less than 5% of digimon communicate intelligently with their Tamers (and no-one else). And then there were the five masters also capable of intelligent thought to some degree. Part of the security of the digital world, amongst other things - like running the Tamer programme.

'Mi means pretty!' Calumon declared. 'i've been learning some japanese,' he added proudly.

Maybe Grandpa Kogorou was right about them being more intelligent than little bits of data. And more real.

Wait… Did that mean they'd been killing innocent digimon? Like animals, as opposed to word documents they'd never use again. That they'd been essentially messing with nature?

But that wasn't possible. A human like Grandpa Kogorou couldn't have _created_ true nature for them to mess around with?


	38. Chapter 38

‘Are you okay?’ Aki asked.

‘Just confused,’ Tomomi sighed. ‘I think my cousin and I are going to have an argument when I get home.’

‘That’s no fun.’ She frowned. ‘There’s no way to avoid it?’

‘Not really.’ She shook her head. ‘He - well, you saw him today.’

‘And you didn’t even have a digimon.’ She nodded. ‘That was really dangerous.’

‘If Pagumon hadn’t been there, I might have been in bad shape.’ She looked at her shoes. She should thank Antalymon, shouldn’t she? ‘Thanks.’

‘Aww, don’t be embarrassed,’ Aki laughed.

Tomomi looked up. Antalymon _was_ blushing. And it was actually...cute.

Maybe it wasn’t so silly, forming relationships with digimon. Maybe it was because of people like her not trying at all, people like most of their friends not trying hard enough, that so few digimon were capable of intelligent conversation. Aki who’d wanted so badly to be friends seemed to have managed it quite easily.

‘I think I’ll register before going home,’ she decided. ‘And start from scratch.’

‘If you want company, let me know,’ smiled Aki. ‘There were some Ultimates in Training Peak a while back and being too cautious can’t hurt.’

She didn’t tell her it was them. It wasn’t going to be them any longer, anyway.


	39. Chapter 39

Their argument turned into a one-sided shouting match. Kain didn’t seem to see what the problem was, even when Tomomi pointed out the bruised elbow she could barely move - and this was the real world. She’d have to get a doctor to look at it. She’d be grounded to, once she told her parents she was with Kain. They were as aware of his reputation as anybody, and while they were proud she spent time with him, getting into trouble with him was a line she shouldn't cross.

In any case, Tomomi marched off to the doctor’s clinic with a lot to think about. She said she hadn’t been paying attention to the road and someone had shoved her out of the way of a car...which was close enough to the truth if you substituted GranKuwagumon for the car and Pagumon for the someone who’d shoved her out of the way. It caused less problems though. She might talk with Grandpa Kogure though. She needed clarification that someone like Aki, or like Kain, wouldn’t be able to give her.

Probably, Grandpa Kogure wouldn’t be able to clear things up later, as blind about his project as he was. But surely he knew more than everyone else?


	40. Chapter 40

Kain bailed on a family dinner. Tomomi would bet her allowance he was in the digital world, but she didn’t want to draw attention to the fact. Instead, she took advantage of his a and chatted with Grandpa Kogorou. He was surprised at her interest - which pointed to the fact that he wasn’t as blind as he’d pretended to be.

‘I thought you might come around,’ he confessed. ‘I hope Kain will too. It might help if he fell in love.’

Tomomi couldn’t help but snicker at the idea. But falling in love might mellow him out. Who knew. But they were getting off topic.

‘I saw a one-eared Pagumon,’ she said.

‘Mutations occur in digimon just like they do in humans,’ he replied.

So it didn’t matter that Kain had been messing around with the code. Nature did it itself.

‘But didn’t you and your lab create the place? How come there’s something like mutation in it?’

‘Too advanced for old geezers to create?’ he laughed, before sobering. ‘Actually, that’s right. It’s not possible to create life, and the digimon are actually live. They’ve always existed.’

‘They’ve always existed?’  Tomomi repeated. ‘But that means...they’re alive.’

‘Of course they are! he cried. ‘I say that every time I see you two. Hasn’t it sunk in yet?’

‘It’s sinking,’ said Tomomi. ‘If Digimon are real, where did they come from?’


	41. Chapter 41

‘The digital world,’ said Grandpa Kogorou. ‘The real digital world. The barrier broke down though, so there was a huge spillover. So we created an artificial digital world to house them. But it wasn’t good enough.’

‘They became sort of shell-like - and then you needed Tamers to help them move and grow and stuff?’ she asked.

‘Precisely that,’ he replied. ‘At the moment, it’s not possible to send them back - scientists are working on that - so in the meantime, we had to make a system to manage all these digimon. And make sure they don’t die before they return to the Digital World.’

‘And how does that work?’ Tomomi asked. ‘Digimon do die.’

‘They reach a critical ratio and are retracted,’ Grandpa Kogorou corrected. ‘If necessary, we degenerate them into digi-eggs and start the process again. But they don’t die. We monitor things better than that.’

‘Oh.’ That was a relief. A huge. A little too big of a relief to be reasonable, perhaps, but she was starting to get the picture. Digimon were like humans, in a sense. More intelligent than animals. Somewhat disorientated at first, until the Tamer formed a good enough bond with them and coax out their individual personalities. ‘I think I get it now.’

‘Did you get a digivice?’ Grandpa Kogorou asked.

‘Yes, I did,’ Tomomi smiled. ‘I got a Tsunomon too.’  After GranKuwagumon, she thought she’d do better with the defensive type.


	42. Chapter 42

She was sure to spend time with Tsunomon before doing any fighting. Most of it was just the two of them, just her talking about the world - both worlds. After all, she had quite a few experiences in the digital world. Some of it was spent in Aki’s farm, playing around with her digimon. Some of that was training too. Tsunomon seemed to like that.

And then they fought. It went much smoother. Tsunomon had some practice when playing, and Tomomi was better at giving commands as well. Better at getting Tsunomon to dodge instead of stand there and take attacks, regardless of whether he could take them or not.

He didn’t evolve as fast as Dagomon, but it was more satisfying, somehow.


	43. Chapter 43

She’d just become a gold tamer when the chiefs disappeared. Aki, a veteran gold tamer by then, was sent off to investigate. That showed she’d been right in that the Tamers were also part of the world’s defence.

Aki came back later with tales of a virus and she wondered if it was Kain.

He wouldn’t answer when she asked, though. Maybe he was still mad at her. Or afraid she’d tell someone. She could do that anyway, though. And the converting of the Sovereigns had affected a lot of other digimon - and even Tamers - as well. And others, like that Yuji guy who’d stopped them ages ago, had gotten hurt. Aki has barely made it through. She’d lost Angewomon though. She’d cried afterwards, but didn’t regret the sacrifice. ‘Because everyone was getting hurt,’ she sobbed. ‘And the sovereigns couldn’t think like they always did. That must have been horrible.’

Something like that really put her past actions into perspective.


	44. Chapter 44

She told Grandpa Kogorou what she thought.

‘I thought so,’ he confessed. ‘The virus is a little worrying, actually. The firewalls couldn’t stop it.’

‘How did Aki beat it?’ Tomomi asked. ‘She beat them, and they went back to normal.’

‘We’re looking into that,’ he said. ‘We think it’s part of the process we use to degenerate eggs and restore them to a base state. Because it’s a real world data thing, not from the digital world so it’s not permanent.’

‘Isn’t that a separate thing?’ The technical lingo still confused her. But she supposed she didn’t need to know that. ‘Anyway, what are you going to do about it?’

‘We can tailor the defence,’ Grandpa Kogorou mused. ‘Chase down the abnormalities as soon as they appear. They’ll do very little damage that way.’

‘He’s trying to create a digimon, too,’ she added.

‘Well…’ He frowned. ‘There is something in natural digimon that is missing from the artificial ones we use for tamer checkpoints.’ So they did create some digimon. ‘I hope a mega level digimon owned by someone of, say your friend Aki’s, calibre would be enough against an artificial digimon of the same level, no matter how they’re enhanced.’

‘Heart or spirit or something?’ she asked.

‘Exactly that,’ he agreed. ‘But, of course, we’d prefer to stop something like that first.’


	45. Chapter 45

Of course, talking to Kain didn't work. 'Too late, Grandpa,' said Kain. 'My digimon is already running a rampage in the digital world.'

Grandpa Kogorou ran for a computer. Kain disappeared as well, ignoring Tomomi who was hailing him.

She went with Grandpa Kogorou. Kain beat them. So did Aki.

As for the digimon, it was the only other thing in the black.

'What have you done?' Grandpa Kogorou cried in horror. 'Where's the land gone? Where are the digimon?'

'Gone,' said Kain bluntly. 'Destroyed.'

Hopefully, the safety mechanisms had whisked them away for regeneration first. And alarms were ringing to keep everyone else away.

But, all over again, they only had Aki's three digimon - all Mega now, thank goodness - to defend them


	46. Chapter 46

Kain called it Chronosmon. Chronosmon didn’t say anything. Just blasted everything. Including Kain.

Kain was extremely lucky Aki had gotten there before him and had her digimon in battle. Otherwise he wouldn’t _be_ there any more.

Tomomi wondered when Kain was going to open his eyes.

He did when he got clipped by an attack. Actually clipped. So it hurt. So his eyes open wide and he screamed.

‘Shut it!’ Tomomi yelled. ‘If you’ve got a way to fix it, do it! Otherwise just shut up for now!’

She probably hadn’t needed to tell him that, but he did shut up.


	47. Chapter 47

Aki was the only one of them with viable digimon, and so she was the only one who fought. The rest of them could only watch, with Grandpa Kogorou mumbling theories under his breath that didn’t seem to be getting anywhere.

Tomomi stopped listening. She never did get that techno lingo – but Kain did, and he kept listening once his own tremulous thoughts slowed down a bit. Listened until he could give his own input, and between the two of them they managed to thumb out a battle plan that tipped the scales in Aki’s favour.

And she did it. She won. Released all that data that had been pent up and they were suddenly in the real world, in the lab at the university where the digital world project had first been born, scrambling for every RAM of space they could scrap up to transfer all that data into its ready-made mould.

And they did it. They saved the digital world.


	48. Chapter 48

She didn’t see Grandpa Kogorou or Kain for a while after that. The former’s excuse was too much work to do. The latter – wasn’t answering her calls or text messages and she had an inkling as to why, but figured she could give him his own space for just this little bit.

Aki, on the other hand, had become the real hero and it washed off her as easily as it had washed on. Sworn to secrecy, Tomomi could only watch in amusement as Aki flittered about like she was just another shallow girl – except she wasn’t. She never had been and, who knew? Maybe the others never had been as well and she’d just never given them the chance.

‘I need to get a digivice,’ she said aloud. ‘And register myself.’

The others cheered. They’d finally converted her…or so they thought. Only Aki (and Kain and Grandpa Kogorou) knew the truth, that she’d been converted long before.


	49. Chapter 49

Three weeks later, she’d had enough. And she told her mother where she’d be after uni and was knocking on Kain’s door.

He didn’t answer. Predictable, really, but she raised a foot and kicked at the door until he opened it from the other side. Not that she could have broken it down, but she could make enough of a ruckus to be annoying.

And his glare told her she’d been successful at that. ‘What?’ he snapped at her.

‘Done moping?’ she returned.

He wasn’t really. But she kept poking at him until he gave in because that, at least, she could do. And probably should have done since the beginning.

But they all learned some valuable lessons from it all and everything and everybody came out alright, so maybe it was worth it after all.

**Author's Note:**

> A rewrite of Digimon World DS, putting Tomomi as the main character, starting a bit before the protagonist appears and changing the progression of events.
> 
> Challenges:
> 
> Diversity Writing Challenge, i13 – a multichap with more than 15 chapters  
> DFC Festival – fireworks (random challenge: Seasons Rewrite Challenge)  
> Seasons Rewrite Challenge  
> The Becoming the Tamer King Challenge, Training Peak task – drabblechap


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